The NTC has made amendments to the MC03-03-2005 which regulates contents/information providers to initiate the “opting-in†of subscribers to services through push messages. It’s been the focus of a lot of issues and disputes on vanishing prepaid loads.
Normally, content providers (CP) will randomly blast free ringtones or ringback tones for free (usually to promote a popular movie or event, like a concert). However, in order to get the free ringtone, one must subscribe to the weekly service. The succeeding tones are then charged to the subscriber.
This practice is now disallowed after the NTC made the following amendments:
- Push messages shall not be allowed. Subscriptions or requests for contents and/or information shall be initiated by the subscribers.
- Commercial and promotional advertisements, surveys and other broadcast messages shall be allowed only if prior consent from the subscribers is secured.
- All subscriptions for the delivery of contents and/or information made prior to the effectivity of this Circular shall continue to be honored until the expiration of the subscription. Subscribers with valid subscriptions prior to the effectivity of this Circular may opt to terminate the subscription prior to expiration. Contents and/or information service providers and CMTS providers shall inform their respective subscribers of their option to pre-terminate their existing subscriptions.
One source who’s into the CP business tells me this amendment could kill as much as 90% of the revenues generated by the industry. The telcos are closely cooperating with the NTC to monitor the Content Providers’ activity on “push messages” and I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of lobbying happening right now.
@Ton
I disagree completely with you premise and I think you do not understand the amendments. This blocks CP from the initial contact, unless you imitate it. So he choice is yours whether you wish to get spamed or not. You are free to ask to be spamed as you wish.
The basic premise here is so important that the rest is immaterial. This stops one of the many “gotcha” business the have sprouted up here. The purpose of these businesses is to trick greedy people into subbing to a service for the 1 free ringtone, game or whatever. Once they sub then they are charged for every subsequent text. It will drain a pre paid load fast. That is what Yuga is talking about.
Gotcha business are a plague upon people. If you or your GF or whoever is into that business then I wish you go straight to hell.
Once they finish tackling these small potatoes, I wish they will go after the banks and the gotcha tactics of the credit card industry.
@yuga
Thanks. Yeah I think understand the memo, its the logic of it that I cant come to terms with :)
I’d still argue that while this may benefit consumers now (if that is at all true), it would be counter productive in the future. The end does not justify the means.
Nice post btw! :) I just realized how rude I was not to say that on my first post/novel.
si enrile ata may pakana neto. anyway, it’s a good move for the benefit of the consumers.
@Ton, I believe this memo only covers CPs, not regular folks like your GF, parents or friends (unless of course they run a CP business with your telco). So you’re correct that any Joe Schmoe can still buy a prepaid SIM and spam you to kingdom come.
I’m not sure I understand the other comments, but allow me to point out a few things…
1. I’d like to DECIDE MYSELF what annoys me. I don’t need the NTC to decide that for me. My ex-girlfriend annoys me, and as things go, I should petition for the NTC to ban her from using a celphone too.
2. “Commercial and promotional advertisements, surveys and other broadcast messages shall be allowed only if prior consent from the subscribers is secured.” ….So instead of sending me text-spam, they send me “invitations” to receive text-spam….I don’t see how that changes anything.
3. I don’t quite comprehend the argument on messages being “unsolicited”. Its like saying “People greeted me through text on my birthday without me asking them to. Damn all of them for sending unsolicited text.” From the same logic, the NTC should ban all messages from my boss, and my mother in law.
4. “Push messages shall not be allowed.” Ahh, right. So now I have to log-on to a server to “Pull” my text messages like email?
SMS=PUSH. Thats the whole concept of it. How exactly does this change that technology?
5. What is the correlation of unsolicited text to vanishing load? You see, what I’m more interested in is statistical data on how many — how should I say this politely — “more responsible” users suffer from this “vanishing load” phenomena everyone is talking about. I’d bet my MacBook the numbers wouldn’t be so compelling.
Fact is people get suckered into these things by ACTUALLY REPLYING and AGREEING to them. The way I understand it, the NTC is protecting the SMS using public, because apparently people cannot think for themselves, and they get duped from their peso very very easily. Thanks.
Bottomline: “You can’t open a window and only let the nice things in. You just have to know which is which.”
owssss? alam ko you’re a part of Globe… it could kill some of your profit if that’s what you mean. Imagine this million of texters thats a million of profits! iba pa ung ninanakaw nyong load! di ba??? sobra sobrang profit ipamahagi nyo naman…..
finally. It took quite a while but I’m damn happy that the NTC has taken action.
naku po patay ang chikka, egg, gma interactive at abs
Spam SMS are intrusive… It’s our right to be free from annoying messages…
Yahoo! No more spam. Use more of your mandated power NTC. Kudos!
Because of the memo, I think the industry will be able to adjust to this new reality and will bounce back. There are other means of bending the NTC rules and they will definitely be creative in this.
The NTC should address also spam which comes from people who randomly send unsolicited text regarding cash loans, bank loads, different product info and alike.
I’m glad NTC is finally doing something about this unsolicited sms. These CPs are robbing people.
So content provider earn their income from duping subscriber?
Is that what they are saying?
90%? thats big. but im sure most consumer are not aware that they are charged every week
90%?? They owe me some of that for spamming my phone with unsolicited ads and messages.
CP Business feeds on ignorance. Really is annoying.
True. They are really annoying.
This is the RIGHT THING.
this should have been done a long time ago, unsolicited messages/advertisments are junk in our inbox.
what about the messages from private numbers who offer CASH LOANS? Is there any way of stopping them?
i think this memo favors the subscribers those spm txt,messages are annoying….